Hi Everyone,

Over the last few weeks we've had lots of teams out playing tournaments.  We've seen a lot of good volleyball and a lot of learning and improvement.  Keep working hard everyone!

One of the challenges of the year has been trying to see our girls play when different venues have various restriction levels for spectators.  While we hope these restrictions will ease as the season progresses, we have to adapt to the reality we have now.  Thanks for all the flexibility you all have shown thus far.

An option we've seen work for a lot of teams has been to have a parent set-up a private group on Facebook and then live-stream with the Facebook Live function during the games.  While this can be an readily available solution on most smartphones, not every team has a parent with the equipment (tri-pod, back-up battery, special mounts, unlimited data plans/hotspots, etc.) or desire to be able to sustain this for an entire tournament.  They may also run into technical difficulties and unintentionally leave the fans hanging in suspense!

There may be other options through YouTube Live, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc.  These all  have benfits similar to those listed above and may lead to similar challenges as well.  If you're thinking about taking this on for your team, reach out to another parent who has already tried.  Most folks love to share their experiences or info about their setups!

Another option we've seen available at a number of venues is to watch the games as they're streamed via BallerTV.  Most of these tournaments have links to the event page on the ballertv website, but events are searchable though their site as well.  While this option adds convenience to the team and parents who can attend in person (in that nobody has to carry-in, setup, and coordinate the streaming), it does incur some expense to the viewers.   The link below provides some info on the BallerTV services and costs.    This service also has options that could allow for additional downloading of video, trimming of clips for highlight reels, and more (depending on your tier of membership).

While none of these beat being in the gym with our girls as they play, hopefully there are some options out there that work for you and your team and will help you stay connected as we work through these unprecedented times!